SPOILERS! 2026 FireRed/LeafGreen Switch rerelease announced (standalone purchase)

[Karxrida]

I don't like the image going around showing the exclusives since it includes post game johto pokemon in it so I made an alternative one quickly in a tier list maker

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I always thought the exclusives in these games were fairly balanced, although one of the best ingame pokemon ever is exclusive to LG (Starmie)

• Arbok and Sandslash: Sandslash is easily the superior mon. Better typing and stats are more optimized, plus you can slap Dig onto for good STAB. Arbok is one of the game's few Intimidate users, but doesn't offer much else other than Glare since it doesn't have natural STAB worth a damn.
• Vileplume and Victreebel: Pretty even, honestly.
• Golduck and Slowbro: Golduck is a generic Water with a shitton of competition. Slowbro actually offers something over it between more optimized stats and Psychic STAB. Edit: Upon doing some research, Golduck is actually the better Pokémon in the context of FRLG due to higher Speed while still having access to Calm Mind, so it can have this one.
• Arcanine and Ninetales: Arcanine is a pretty big win for FR. Good stats and Intimidate with access to decent moves. You even get Extremespeed during the endgame. Uh Ninetales exists.
• Cloyster and Starmie: Cloyster is a decent Pokémon but it's not competing with Starmie for ingame lol. Starmie carries the LG selection pretty hard, honestly.
• Scyther and Pinsir: Neither are super good tbh (also just hard to get) but Scyther is better I guess.
• Electabuzz and Magmar: About even, though they're both found near Legendary Birds they share a typing with and are kind of outclassed by them.

Not perfect but yeah, pretty balanced.

 

[TheMantyke]

Fair warning: if you're expecting all of Gen 3 to hit the switch, you only want to purchase one of FRLG, and you want to do as close to a 386 Pokédex as you can get, I would recommend picking up LG instead. IIRC, if you include the GameCube titles, every Pokemon in Gen 3 is split up across at least two games... Except for Slowpoke. Slowpoke's only in LG for whatever reason. Plan your purchase accordingly if that's your goal!

 

[Gex Maniac]

Fair warning: if you're expecting all of Gen 3 to hit the switch, you only want to purchase one of FRLG, and you want to do as close to a 386 Pokédex as you can get, I would recommend picking up LG instead. IIRC, if you include the GameCube titles, every Pokemon in Gen 3 is split up across at least two games... Except for Slowpoke. Slowpoke's only in LG for whatever reason. Plan your purchase accordingly if that's your goal!

As someone who is actively doing a gen 3 national living dex, you are 100% correct. Slowpoke's evolution line is only obtainable in Leafgreen, which is both funny and annoying.

 

[nitchenkightmares]

Better late than never I guess. It took them 7 years to port one mainline game. They're getting there, but not by much.
Twenty dollars for each? Pretty expensive for the blander mainline titles but at least it isn't Mario 3D all-stars (80 dollars 4 2 wii games??)

Not even surprised that the game has no online connectivity or Pokemon Home connectivity. I mean Z-A doesn't have access to HOME and its been 4 months since the game has been out. Will bet 20$ and 1000 gimmighoul coins that the "no Home transfer yet" will change to "never" because the devs at Pokemon works cannot make HOME function whatsoever.

 

[Altissimo]

As someone who is actively doing a gen 3 national living dex, you are 100% correct. Slowpoke's evolution line is only obtainable in Leafgreen, which is both funny and annoying.

I have a couple reference pages about this for anyone who wants to make decisions accordingly

https://altissimo1.github.io/Main-Series/RSE/gen-3-games.html - locations of all mons within gen 3
https://altissimo1.github.io/Main-Series/FRLG/Pokedex/index.html - general Pokedex completion explanations

 

[Hugin]

The rising theory that the old titles' Game Corners were jacking up the age ratings has also seemingly been crushed: As others have observed, the ratings for this rerelease mention "simulated gambling", so evidently there's a grandfather clause at play.

This bugs me so much. Why does it need a grandfather clause? Gacha Games and Lootboxes dominate the industry and are specifically marketed at children, Nintendo's Animal Crossing has huge amounts of content locked behind "log in every day to check this RNG" and even turnip-based gambling and all of that's fine, but show a card or a slot machine and suddenly it's harmful to kids no matter how mediocre or unnecessary the rewards are.

I have a couple reference pages about this for anyone who wants to make decisions accordingly

https://altissimo1.github.io/Main-Series/RSE/gen-3-games.html - locations of all mons within gen 3
https://altissimo1.github.io/Main-Series/FRLG/Pokedex/index.html - general Pokedex completion explanations

So you need LG(Slowpoke), XD(Lugia), Colo(Ho-Oh), and either R+S or E(Kyogre/Groudon/Lati@s). No chance to avoid that.

I tried cutting Colo+XD if we give up the legends, but it's a nightmare. You need both FR&LG for all gen 1 mons, AND both R+S for all gen 3 mons, AND E for gen 2 mons.

 

[Sirya]

Fair warning: if you're expecting all of Gen 3 to hit the switch, you only want to purchase one of FRLG, and you want to do as close to a 386 Pokédex as you can get, I would recommend picking up LG instead. IIRC, if you include the GameCube titles, every Pokemon in Gen 3 is split up across at least two games... Except for Slowpoke. Slowpoke's only in LG for whatever reason. Plan your purchase accordingly if that's your goal!

Johto starters are another exception. Although you can theoretically get them in Pokémon Emerald, meaning you don't have to own Colosseum or XD, you have to complete the entire Hoenn Dex each time you want to get one of them. That means, without the aid of GC games, you are about to beat and then complete Pokémon Emerald Pokédex 3 times just to get Chikorita, Cyndaquil and Totodile.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Several other companies have re-released DS games on modern hardware and found workarounds when necessary. They aren't always strictly perfect workarounds, but they do exist and are possible. Plus mainline Pokémon games on DS don't even use the bottom screen for anything extensive outside of a minigame or two, and some of those could easily be mapped to normal controls anyway.

I think a funny irony about this talking point is that, if anything, it'd be comparably more difficult to port the 3DS game library which had more robust and major touch screen features, from the PSS to ORAS DexNav to Amie/Refresh. Still not an excuse, but yeah

 

[Nickeljorn]

This bugs me so much. Why does it need a grandfather clause? Gacha Games and Lootboxes dominate the industry and are specifically marketed at children, Nintendo's Animal Crossing has huge amounts of content locked behind "log in every day to check this RNG" and even turnip-based gambling and all of that's fine, but show a card or a slot machine and suddenly it's harmful to kids no matter how mediocre or unnecessary the rewards are.

The theory I've seen is that they see a casino itself as triggering no matter the context (like the scale getting taken out of the Antihero music video even though it was supposed to symbolize how eating disorders make people who aren't normally fatphobic see being fat as bad), also Turnips aren't completely random

 

[chris.txt]

Probably an unpopular opinion but I actually like that the games aren't on NSO to be honest. I much preferred the days of Virtual Console and being able to buy the games I actually want to play, so FRLG being standalone is welcomed to me. Extra features like savestates/rewind aren't things I use when playing retro games anyways so I can't say I'd miss them.

Also paying to play on the internet is dumb but that's unrelated to this thread xdd

 

[Sirya]

Probably an unpopular opinion but I actually like that the games aren't on NSO to be honest. I much preferred the days of Virtual Console and being able to buy the games I actually want to play, so FRLG being standalone is welcomed to me. Extra features like savestates/rewind aren't things I use when playing retro games anyways so I can't say I'd miss them.

Also paying to play on the internet is dumb but that's unrelated to this thread xdd

I supose having the games for "free" for those who pay extra for the GBA service and at the same time selling them in the shop for those who have not the GBA services or just want to have them "forever" is something unrealizable in 2026.

 

[astroshagger]

Do we know if Navel Rock and Birth Island will be available? I begged to go to Pokemon Rocks America in 2004

 

[crobatfan11]

Do we know if Navel Rock and Birth Island will be available? I begged to go to Pokemon Rocks America in 2004

Not known atm, that said, ACE is really easy in FRLG to do, so even if they don't allow it, you can most likely just glitch to them. (Assuming an emulator inaccuracy doesn't break ACE)